With Overhaul Games already developing a version of the recently announced Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for the iPad (in addition to planned PC and Mac versions), it would almost seem like a no-brainer for the developer to port a version over to Nintendo's upcoming, tablet-sporting Wii U as well. But as Overhaul's Trent Oster tweeted late last night, "We don't do Nintendo development. Our previous experience with Nintendo was enough to ensure there will not be another."

That "previous experience" was the development of the WiiWare version of classic first-person shooter MDK2, a port Oster says he thinks was "probably the best version of that game on any console," thanks to great integration with the Wii remote. But the process of working on that port with Nintendo has soured the developer from ever working with the company again, and has Oster reluctant to work in the console space in general.

A deceptively small market for Wii games

While Oster says Overhaul had "assumed [the MDK2 Wii port] would be successful given the large sales volume of Wii," Nintendo's massive hardware sales numbers masked a fundamental weakness in the market, as far as third-party developers are concerned. The tens of millions of people that bought the Wii includes a large proportion who bought the system for games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit and never bought another game, Oster said, leaving a deceptively smaller core of longer-term Nintendo fans to support hardcore games from developers like Overhaul.

And despite a concerted PR effort, Oster confirmed to Ars Technica that this core of serious Wii software buyers wasn't enough to get MDK2 past the 6,000 download minimum that Nintendo has set as the point where it starts sharing WiiWare profits with developers.

"We haven't seen a dime," Oster said. "Maybe some day in the future it crosses that magic threshold and at some point Nintendo cuts us a check. ... How many developers have put stuff up to WiiWare that are sitting there at the 5,000 [or] 5,500 sales number and Nintendo is just sitting on the money. For some small developers that could be a big difference."

Nintendo's rules for downloadable game size also caused headaches. Oster recalled struggling to get the original game, which came in at over 400MB, down below the 40MB limit Nintendo set for downloadable titles. The process involved "basically trim[ming] everywhere we could," including cutting out some of the game's music tracks, recompressing the remaining audio with a new codec, and cutting down level format data to the bone.

And getting the game certified by Nintendo, a process Oster says could have taken less than a month of focused work, dragged on instead for nine months as Nintendo spaced its bug reports out with multiple week gaps. "It just made us feel really low priority," he said. "We felt like they just weren't paying attention."

Problems with the console space

Yet even if Nintendo suddenly made developing for the Wii U a smoother experience by fixing these kinds of issues (the company has yet to respond to a request for comment on the matter), Oster said he's generally down on the prospect of bringing Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition to consoles in general. Partly that's because the game would probably be "interface and inventory hell" using a standard controller. But it's also partly because he no longer thinks distributing on consoles is compatible with the way he wants to make games.

"Everyone stepped away from PC because there was the perception that PC was making no money, that all the money was in consoles," Oster said. "But suddenly now we have this resurgence of digital distribution platforms like Steam and GoG and you see this big success on the PC."

"I see the competition in the console space, and I see the $20 to $30 million budgets and the massive teams that take horrible horrible pains to create the quality level that's over there, and I don't think that's a place we can play in and do well on," he continued. "I think we need to pick a spot where we can be much smarter with our efforts."

"Our goal is to stay a small team, to focus on making great games and never have an HR department... and that's not compatible with the console space, it just really isn't."

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl